First Gay Club

On Saturday, Wicked Gay Blog posted the following post which went viral, "Question of the Day: What was the name of the very first gay bar you ever walked into?"  The post itself has gotten over 200 comments.  David at WGB has one of the best blogs on the net.  He's been around for years, but sadly, he will be ending WGB at the end of the year.

Besides asking what was the name of the very first gay bar you ever walked into, David also asked a few other questions.   Were you nervous? Where was it located? Do you remember any song that may have been playing? What year was it?

I'm going to go first and answer the questions, and I hope that you will follow suit in the comments below.  The first gay club I ever went to was Oz in New Orleans, Louisiana.  I was a little nervous, but I had two female friends with me.  This was in 2001 (I think) when I was in graduate school and attending the Southern Historical Association's annual meeting.  I don't remeber the music that was playing (I'm terrible with music), but my guess is that it was something by Brittany Spears.  I remeber dancing with one friend while the other sat at the bar watching the go-go dancers.  This of course was pre-Hurricane Katrina and the bar was jam packed and back then it was also about twice as large as it is now.  I vividly remeber going out on the dance floor and being surrounded by all these beautiful gay men and smelling the musk and manliness of the sweaty dancing men.  It was intoxicating and I was so aroused.  I still find myself aroused by that particular smell of a group of gay men.

The other thing I remeber, and is always my favorite thing about Oz, were the go-go dancers on the bar.  When we sat at the bar with our other friend, I will never forget her comment, "I'd give him [the go-go dancer] a tip, but that is the ugliest colored thong I've ever seen."  And though the thong showed off the dancer's assets very nicely, I will admit that the orange/peach color of is was not very flattering.  I also remeber that the other dancer on that section of the bar was not wearing anything but socks and tennis shoes and merely had a hand towel over his crotch, which occasionally he would move out of the way.  

Oz is still my all time favorite gay bar/dance club.  I've been in gay bars in Europe and across the United States, but Oz has always had the nicest bartenders and the hottest, sexiest, and sweetest go-go dancers.  I've had a lot of fun flirting with the dancers at Oz, and when it's slow, they usually love to squat down and have a chat with the patrons.  By the way, I'm almost certain the picture above is either from Oz or the Bourbon Pub across the street.